Gerry Adams' younger brother Liam, who is wanted on charges of child sex abuse, traded on the Sinn Fein president's name to advance his career, according to Arthur Morgan, the Sinn Fein TD for Louth.
Morgan said he is not sure why Liam Adams moved to Dundalk in the mid-1990s, but speculated that it was because of his elder brother's popularity among local republicans. "At a guess I would say he knew that Gerry Adams was popular in Dundalk. Perhaps he came here because he knew he would get a good reception from the people of the town by virtue of his name and help build his own ego," the TD said yesterday.
Morgan's comments will bolster suspicions that Liam Adams used the family name to secure jobs in community projects. He became a prominent member of Sinn Fein's Louth branch for two years in the mid-1990s, being chairman briefly in 1996. Morgan described him as drifting from one project to another.
Liam Adams's precise role has dogged Sinn Fein since December when the party leader revealed that he had become aware of child abuse allegations in 1987 and denied knowing that his brother was subsequently a party member.
It later emerged that the two had canvassed together for Sinn Fein in Co Louth.